Category Archives: Mahayana

Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, was an artmonk

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In honor of Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA (one of the founders of the Beastie Boys) who died of cancer this morning, here’s “Bodhisattva Vow”:

“In addition to his career with the Beastie Boys, Yauch was heavily involved in the movement to free Tibet. A founder of the Milarepa Fund, Yauch was instrumental in the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park 1996, which drew 100,000 people – the largest U.S. benefit concert since 1985′s Live Aid. After 9/11, Yauch and the Beastie Boys organized New Yorkers Against Violence, a concert benefit for some of the victims least likely to receive help from elsewhere. ”

As I develop the awakened mind
I praise the buddhas as they shine
I bow before you as I travel my path
To join your ranks, I make my full time task

For the sake of all beings I seek
The enlightened mind that I know I’ll reap
Respect to Shantideva and all the others
Who brought down the dharma for the sisters and brothers

I give thanks for this world as a place to learn
And for this human body that I know I’ve earned
And my deepest thanks to all sentient beings
For without them there would be no place to learn what I’m seeing

There’s nothing here thats not been said before
But I put it down now so that I’ll be sure
To solidify my own views
And I’ll be glad if it helps anyone else out too

If others disrespect me and give my flack
I’ll stop and think before I react
Knowing that they’re going through insecure stages
I’ll take the opportunity to exercise patience

I’ll see it as a chance to help the other person
Nip it in the bud before it can worsen
A chance for me to be strong and sure
As I think on the Buddhas who have come before

As I praise and respect the good they’ve done
Knowing only love can conquer hate in every situation
We need other people in order to create
The circumstances for the learning that we’re here to generate

Situations that bring up our deepest fears
So that we can work to release them until they’ve cleared
Therefore, it only make sense
To thank our enemies despite their intent

The Bodhisattva path is one of power and strength
A strength from within to go the length
Seeing others are as important as myself
I strive for a happiness of mental wealth

With the interconnectedness that we share as one
Every action that we take affects everyone
So in deciding for what a situation calls
There is a path for the good of all

I try to make my every action for that highest good
With the altruistic wish to achieve buddahood
So I pledge here before everyone who’s listening
To make my every action for the good of all beings

For the rest of my lifetimes and
Even beyond I vow to do my best to do no harm
And in times of doubt i can think on the dharma
And the enlightened ones who’ve graduated Samsara

Read more:http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/beastie-boys-co-founder-adam-yauch-dead-at-48-20120504#ixzz1txlXXHHG

Shi Yongxin, “CEO Monk” and abbot of the Shaolin Temple

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Buddhism is the dominant religion in China, with as many as 300 million believers across the country. Like other forms of Buddhism, Zen emphasizes letting go of worldly cares and working toward enlightenment through meditation and practice of the Buddha’s teachings, which include a ban on harming any sentient beings. As its home, and the centerpiece of many kung fu novels and films, the Shaolin Temple has become an integral part of Chinese popular culture. In fact, it is probably one of the most famous global brands to have come out of China in any industry, thanks in no small part to the abbot, whom Chinese media have dubbed the “CEO monk.”

via Lunch with Shi Yongxin, the abbot of the Shaolin Temple. – By Jamil Anderlini – Slate Magazine.

Alan Wallace on DharmaCafe.com: Renunciation as Emergence Out of X and Towards Y

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In this excellent interview from dharmacafe.com (via @c4chaos), Alan Wallace says that what often gets translated from Buddhist texts as “renunciation” is something closer to “emergence,” as in when we emerge from childish strategies that don’t work toward something more authentic and fulfilling.

It’s more than a radical disillusionment, like Sartre or Camus… They’re renouncing something, but it ends in something pallid, something sterile and flat… Renunciation [or emergence] is recognizing the vanity of vain desires, the pointlessness of pointless behavior, a lot of which we get very fixated on, on occasion. It’s waking up, it’s growing up, and recognizing, “I yearn for a quality of genuine fulfillment, of meaning, of something that will provide me with some deep and lasting satisfaction.” And that doesn’t mean being chipper and happy all the time; for that you can just take a drug.

So the spirit of emergence: it’s emerging from childish desires… “When I was a child I spoke as child” and that sort of thing. [It's] growing up, and recognizing that I’m seeking fulfillment, satisfaction, happiness and meaning, and I’m not going to get it by more material acquisition and fame and wealth and sensual pleasures. It’s hopeless; I’ve awakened to the fact that that’s not there. That’s the renunciation aspect, but the spirit of emergence is that definitely, with confidence and certainty, we emerge out of childish desires and emerge towards (and that’s what’s often missing) authentic aspirations and ideals, an authentic way of life that does hold the promise of providing the fulfillment that we seek.

So it’s got to have the dual valence, but you’re right that this is what runs against the grain of modernity as a whole, which is trying to sell us on things you can buy, you can consume, that will keep the GDP growing, and keep us tapping the natural resources and making money for somebody. And [renunciation] is saying: to have enough, a car that runs, clothes that keep you warm, sufficient food that keeps you healthy, this is really quite sufficient. When you’ve got that much, then the world has done enough.  That is, the mundane world has provided you to now focus your attention with all your strength, your soul, your might on that which is truly meaningful

—Alan Wallace on DharmaCafe.com (at roughly 1 hour 10 min of this video)

 

B. Alan Wallace from DharmaCafe.com on Vimeo.

Monks for life? « Madhushala

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Madhushala asks about the length and permanence of monastic vows in different traditions, and gets some interesting responses:

Monks for life?

There was a discussion on Twitter recently about the topic of monks disrobing. It is commonly thought that once monastic vows are taken they are for life. I did not think this was so as pretty well all the the temples of any Buddhist sect I have been to in Asia have a large number of younger people and very few older people.

My view was that a lot of the younger people come to get an education and many disrobe after that or as their families direct, hence the reason there are children there, and that many older people who do not become teachers retire.

So I put the question on Facebook to various monastic and priestly people and here are the responses I got.

Read more at Monks for life?

Economies of Merit at play in Qinghai

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Last year, the Taer Monastery reported ticket sales revenues of 36 million yuan (US$5.48 million). The money was used to pay every monk about 10,000 yuan in living allowances and to maintain the monastery buildings.

In 2010, the per capita net income of farmers and herdsmen in Qinghai was 3,863 yuan, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Besides allowances, the monks can earn extra income by chanting prayers for families of Tibetan Buddhist believers.

Link to Shanghai Daily

When I visited Chinese and Tibetan monasteries in 2003, it was clear that technology had hit, and that tourism was big business. I don’t fault these monks at all for owning cellphones or surfing the Internet. Or for earning roughly 1,500 US dollars a year, for that matter. Good on ‘em.

But it will be interesting to see how it shifts their relationship to the secular world. What do those herdsmen think?

There are patterns of economic growth and reform in so many traditions, from wealth to poverty and back again. The cause of this cycle–that vows of renunciation of wealth are be viewed as meritorious, and thereby become a source of profit–seems unsustainable.

Can monasteries justify continuing to operate in the black market of merit, pretending to dwell outside of the ecosystem of the “worldly”?

Rather than make claims to renunciation, maybe it would be better to pursue another merit strategy, or a source of revenue that doesn’t involve merit. Or maybe that just gets us back to the blind pursuit of profit–without values–that many monastics are trying to avoid in the first place.

Economies of Merit

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In many monastic and religious traditions, ethical and spiritual “merit” gets traded like a commodity.1

Nuns and monks agree to live a certain way, abiding by a certain kind of behavior (which their society has deemed the most virtuous or ethical), and in exchange they don’t have to earn their own money to stay alive, but can focus on loftier or more personally pressing matters. What the monastics bring to the bartering table is merit—a substance, not much more abstract than money, that your good deeds earn you and which earns you future spiritual favor (a trip to heaven, a better rebirth, decreased negative karma, etc.). How a monk or nun lives effectively earns them points, which, for their purposes, will be directly or indirectly useful in attaining whatever it is they are seeking. When monastics follow the rules and earn a surplus of merit, which they agree to share with each other, with laypeople (alive and dead), and other beings, they earn their worldly keep.

This merit benefits the surrounding society in a number of ways. Directly, lay folk ask the merit-rich monks, nuns and priests to pray for them and for their (living or dead) relatives, and to perform rites and ceremonies for them. Indirectly, the knowledge that the monks you give alms to exist as exemplars of (your definition of) purity and holiness, encapsulated in special buildings more beautiful than any, is a gift.

On a broader level, monasteries themselves agree to uphold and enforce merit-earning behavior, and are given land, buildings, and special rights. Monasteries are merit-engines.

So which came first in monastic traditions around the world: morality, merit, or money?

Continue reading →

  1. For example, the 15th and 16th century papacy’s practice of selling spiritual indulgences: “the Church drew from the the treasury of merits accumulated by the good works of the saints, and in return the recipient made a contribution to the Church. A voluntary and popular arrangement, the practice allowed the Church to raise money for financing crusades and building cathedrals and hospitals. At first applied only to penalties imposed by the Church in this life, by Luther’s time indulgences were being granted to remit penalties imposed by God in the afterlife, including immediate release from purgatory. With indulgences effecting even the remission of sins, the sacrament of penance itself was seemingly compromised.” (Richard Tarnas, in Passion of the Western Mind) ↩

Disrobing “Big Mind”

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I don’t know what kind of monk Genpo Roshi actually intended to be, but his recent disrobing brings up some good issues around a few of the elements of monasticism I’ve been writing about.

  • Celibacy & Sexuality (can monks be sexually active? how ’bout unfaithfully so? polyamorous?)
  • Vows (where do marriage vows and monastic vows overlap?)
  • Hierarchy (what happens when unfaithful sex is with your intended successor?)
  • Renunciation (as Brad Warner points out below, poverty clearly wasn’t one of Genpo Roshi’s vows. Can/should monks make money? Can/should they charge lots and lots of money for their spiritual services?).

Brad Warner, author of “Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between“ writes at Elephant Journal (via @duffmcduffee):

Look. I am not insisting all Zen monks take a vow of absolute poverty and live on just what they can carry in a knapsack slung over their backs like the monks in ancient China did. I know we’re living in a completely different society than they were. I own three bass guitars, a used PT Cruiser, and a ten-speed bike. I wouldn’t want to have to stuff those in a knapsack. But three houses? For the love of God, who needs three houses? I don’t even have one!

To weigh in on the matter: I’ve tried out Hal and Sidra Stone’s ”voice dialogue” technique, which forms the basis of Genpo Roshi’s (now Genpo Merzel’s) Big Mind Big Heart process, and have found it genuinely interesting and psychologically revealling, especially in a community setting. I look forward to exploring voice dialogue further, on its own (therapeutic) terms. I have a hard time with Genpo’s claims that the process can lead to genuine experiences of enlightenment in a few hours, but I don’t rule out the possibility that people are having subjectively very powerful spiritual experiences.

In the end, though, there is something deeply disturbing about the fact that Genpo has been able to charge as much as he does (allegedly $50,000 a session, at one point) for his process. With that kind of price tag, it starts to smell like people’s desperate spiritual cravings are being taken advantage of.

Insofar as what happened was a sexual tryst, I agree with Warner (see Elephant article linked to above) that it really is “between him, his wife, and his lover.” Insofar as what happened broke his personal monastic vow, it’s between him and… himself. But insofar as it violated his responsibility to his successor (e.g. to not contaminate a professional power dynamic with sexual energy) and thereby his community, it is problematic.

Warner points out one of the greatest benefits to being a part of a community: accountability.

By leaving the Buddhist community, Genpo has now put himself beyond the reach of the only people who could legitimately criticize Big Mind®. I expect to see Big Mind® get even bigger and cause more destruction. Even absent the Big Mind® nonsense, remaining in the Buddhist order would have been the best way to address the other matters.

If the community’s way of holding Genpo accountable for his actions is to remove him from the community, to whom will he now be accountable? His customers?

Jesus Lama

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…the encounter between Catholicism and Buddhism cannot take place at the level of the Magisterium, it can only take place at the level of two contemplatives talking together in private.

—Harold Talbott, paraphrasing Dom Aelred Graham, in “Thomas Merton in the Himalayas, An Interview with Harold Talbott” from Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Summer, 1992.

If the typos and the fuchsia are off-putting in the link above, I recommend reading the article in full at Tricycle (you’ll need a paid membership; pick up a copy of Rebel Buddha while you’re at it.), here.

More highlights:

He went out to take photographs and met Sonam Kazi. I knew this from his eyes before he told me. And that was the birth of the blues, the beginning of the Dzogchen teachings for Thomas Merton. Sonam Kazi was the official interpreter assigned to the Dalai Lama by the government of India, the interpreter, for example, in the talks between Nehru, Chou En Lai, and the Dalai Lama. Sonam ran into Merton on the road, invited him to a teahouse and zapped him.

…Merton was a ripened and ready object of a visit from Sonam Kazi and he got it. He said to me occasionally after that “I came to Asia to study Zen in Japan and now I have changed my itinerary and I’m going to study Dzogchen in India with the Tibetans.”

…

[T]he Dalai Lama looked at Merton and said, “What do you want?” And Merton said, “I want to study Dzogchen.”

…

Tricycle: What did the Dalai Lama ask Merton about Christianity?

Talbott: If I’m not mistaken, it was about how you live the contemplative life in the West and what you do to make it possible in this modern world to live the life of a monk in the West. How do you stave off spiritual annihilation?

…

The fact is that he told the Dalai Lama that wanted to study Dzogchen so the Dalai Lama spent hours preparing him to find a Dzogchen guru. And he found him in the Chatral Rinpoche. He went down to Sri Lanka where he convinced himself that he had the experience of dhamakaya (emptiness), seeing the status of the Shakyamuni statues and Ananda. Then he was electrocuted and died and we are left to sit here and talk about how Dzogchen was the final bestowal on Merton by a divinely compassionate savior.

…

Then he went and addressed the heads of contemplative communities in Bangkok. The conclusions he reached were conclusions that the late Trungpa Rinpoche had drawn too: in Merton’s words “It’s every monk for himself now.” Structures can no longer be relied on to provide protection to foster the spiritual life. Everyone – ordained or not- for himself, through his practice of her practice. And one of the most congenial means for going on your own is Dzogchen.